Parts of speech
Kah has four parts of speech. There are two substantive forms and two smaller and very limited closed classes: Verbs Verbs are the part of speech that can be modified by stative verbs in an adverbial manner, aspect and mood markers and canalize the grammatical roles of their arguments as the head of verbal clauses. There are two subclasses of verbs: active and stative verbs. Both subclasses can either be intransitive or transitive, which means they can either have one argument (a subject) or two or more (a subject and one or more objects). Active verbs Active verbs solely denote actions and occurrences and never states in Kah. Examples of active verbs and their use are: tonen - to improve soza - to drink tu - to cut pau - to give titom tonen weather improve the weather is improving ubu soza binso man drink beer the men drank beer Merih tu seki mary cut meat Mary cut the meat Haik pau wa apa hayk give i money Hayk gave me money Stative verbs Stative verbs are the words that modify nouns in an attributive and often adjectival way. They often express a state like a quality or result. nia yam car be red red car simwana nyeka girl be happy happy girl Stative verbs function as fullblown verbs. This is even more visible when an adjective is topicalized and put in front of a noun. In this construction the modifying adjective is emphasized to a point it is better translated with a predicate construction: yam nia be red car the car is red nyeka simwana be happy girl the girl is happy There is a large group of stative verbs denoting a resultative state: unga okaiza animal be trapped trapped animal apa ominza money be stolen stolen money Stative verbs rarely are accompanied by aspect markers: nia la yam car be at be red the car is being red simwana denu nyeka girl go be happy the girl will be happy Also, Kah stative verbs with an adjectival meaning can modify verbs just as easily in a manner that would require an adverb in English. Compare: fanyo wezai parents loving loving parents fanyo tizia wezai simbu parents raise loving boy the parents raised the boy lovingly The following example shows how adjectival stative verbs can have objects: fanyo wezai yu parents be loving him the parents are loving towards him Nouns Nouns in Kah are a lexical category made up by words that can be modified by stative verbs, the possessive marker or deictic pronouns in an attributive manner and can serve as an argument to verbs. In semantic aspect this means nouns express items, persons, places, events, actions and such: kaiko - book ubu - man ala - place In Kah oblique phrases describing things like location, time and such circumstances are made up of nouns also: ninye ben denu kwando yesterday child go school the children went to school yesterday meo nyau tila ape ye cat be stuck be on top tree that the cat is stuck in top of that tree Conjunctions Conjunctors connect clauses and phrases and describe the nature of this relationship: ai - and eom - or en - that eno - in order that esto - but eta - when In many instances these conjunctions are coordinating: Dik ai Jen dick and jane Dick and Jane zano eom yino right or left right or left keju de esto nong tengi want come but not can I wanted to come but I wasn't able to Then there are subordinating ones: ka wa tonto de say me if come Tell me if he comes papau yu eno pau pay he that give pay him so he gives it Interjections Interjections are words that can show up anywhere and often coincide with emotions: eo - yes, indeed nong - no, not wu - how very, what nye - yay! ha - question particle Examples of their use are: bukim eo de king yes come the king has arrived indeed eo za! yes take! gotcha! aki shu ha? food be sweet q. is the food nice? nong keju not want I don't want it wu nenyun kuku! how very be pretty face what a pretty face!